European football’s governing body gives blessing to competition which will be
played every two years and run in parallel with the World Cup and European
Championship

England will play in a new international tournament from 2018 after Uefa’s Nations League was formally ratified yesterday.

The executive committee of European football’s governing body gave its blessing to the format for the competition, which will be played every two years and run in parallel with the World Cup and European Championship.

Established to boost the profile of the international game, the Nations League will mean friendlies are replaced by competitive matches between similarly-ranked countries. That could mean regular meetings between England, Germany, Spain, Italy, France and Holland.

The format agreed yesterday mirrored that unveiled earlier this year with Uefa’s 54 nations to be split into four divisions, containing four groups of either three or four teams.

Division A, in which England are likely to feature, will contain four groups of three, with matches played home and away between Sept and Nov 2018.

The winners of each group will advance to a tournament in June 2019 that includes semi-finals and a final. The group winners of divisions B, C and D will all be promoted for the subsequent competition, with the bottom side from divisions A, B and C relegated.

Each of the 16 group winners will also enter a play-off to take place in March 2020 that will decide four qualifiers for the European Championship.

However, any side already qualified for Euro 2020 through the usual route will be replaced by the runner-up in their group or, if they too have qualified, the next best team, and so on.

The existing qualifying competition for the Euros will be streamlined to run between March and Nov 2019, and will consist of 10 groups, with the top two teams progressing automatically to the finals.

The Nations League will start again in September 2020, with World Cup qualification on offer for group winners.